rneyed with him across the
Great Water, and who, happening in some mysterious way--which he,
Malachi, did not pretend to understand--to possess some slight knowledge
of the Izreelite tongue, would act as interpreter between Her Majesty
and the physician.

By the time that Malachi had finished his speech the terrible
listlessness and indifference of the Queen's manner, which had for so
many months been a source of anxiety to the nation in general and the
Elders and nobles in particular, had completely vanished, and she
electrified the chief Elder by raising herself upon her couch and
bidding him imperiously to be gone and to leave her alone with her
ladies and the two strangers. The poor old gentleman, his head dizzy
with many conflicting emotions, hastily bowed himself out, and was
halfway back to his own quarters in the Legislature before he well knew
whether he was on his head or his heels.

The door had no sooner closed upon Malachi than an extraordinary change
took place in the appearance and demeanour of the Queen; the languor of
her attitude and the absolute listlessness and indifference with which
she had regarded her chief Elder vanished as if by magic. Her eyes lit
up eagerly, a wave of colour suffused her hitherto marble-white cheeks
and brow, and, turning to her two visitors, she astounded them by
exclaiming in excellent English, with only a trace of accent, as she
stretched out her hands toward them:

"Gentlemen--gentlemen, are you indeed English, or has my poor brain at
last given way under the strain of my terrible trouble?"

For a moment the friends were literally smitten speechless by
astonishment; then Grosvenor, who was the first to recover full
possession of his faculties, sprang forward and, sinking upon one knee,
raised one of the little outstretched hands respectfully to his lips.

"Madam," he said, absent-mindedly retaining the Queen's hand in his own
as he still knelt before her, "we are indeed Englishmen, and entirely at
your service. There are but two of us, as you see; but you have only to
command us, and whatever two Englishmen in the midst of thousands of
enemies can do, that will we do for you. Isn't that so, Dick?"

"It is, indeed," answered Dick, smiling at the passionate fervour of his
friend's speech. "Your Majesty has but to explain to us the nature of
your trouble, and it shall go hard indeed with us if we do not devise
some means to help you, especially as, unless I am ent